Bearing black

Bell, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9133-4927, 2013. Bearing black. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5 (1), pp. 122-125. ISSN 2159-8142

Preview

Text 14100_Bell.pdf - Published version Download (132kB) | Preview

Abstract

In this essay I critically examine the idea of race in light of the killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American unarmed teenager, in Florida in February 2012. I utilize ideas from liberation psychology, including psychic colonization, and depth psychology, including cultural complex, to explore the racialized black as a colonized, traumatized other. I also use my autoethnographic experience (as a Jamaican who now lives in the United States) to discuss how identities built on race are a source of suffering both when we make others black and when we are made black. Bearing black robs us of the possibility of our humanity. Throughout, I ask several questions about sustaining race as a sociological idea if we truly intend to dismantle racism. I invite us to reconsider race in light of an instance where Rastafarians, a small group of Afro-Jamaicans who express profound race consciousness, determine their own image, not only as black, and as a form of resisting white supremacy.

Item Type:	Journal article
Description:	Special Issue on Violence against Individuals and Communities: Reflecting on the Trayvon Martin Case.
Publication Title:	Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology
Creators:	Bell, D.
Publisher:	Ball State University, Muncie, IN
Date:	2013
Volume:	5
Number:	1
ISSN:	2159-8142
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	18 Jun 2019 15:02
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2019 15:04
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/36846

Actions (login required)

Edit View

Statistics

Views

Downloads